Home Tours 2016 – Case Study Home

Case Study Home

Menlo Park, California

DESIGN TEAM

The design of this home was inspired by the Owner’s fascination with the Southern California Case Study contemporary homes of the 1950’s which featured large expanses of glass, open floor plans and the concept of opening up interior spaces and bringing the outdoors in. Other stylistic elements include horizontal low profile roof planes, trellis structures, and exterior finish materials such as stucco, wood, steel and brick.

The design of the home was conceived through embracing the two front yards and connecting them by a circulation axis with endpoints that create two front entries at opposite ends of the home. At the center point of this axis, there is a long span of exterior wall that is all glass with operable doors. This wall opens to a large side-facing courtyard that defines a private outdoor living space complete with built in BBQ. The courtyard is enclosed on three sides with predominately glass exterior walls, flooding the interior of the home with natural light. A similar strategy was used at the three-story stair tower that extends from the basement to the second floor. The exterior wall of the stair is filled with glass bringing natural light into the interior spaces of the home.

Although the style of the home is distinctly modern, the interior is warm and inviting through the choice of finish materials, including vertical grain Douglas fir windows, doors and ceilings. And one of the most distinctive features is a full height brick masonry wall in the living room with earthen colored oversized brick in a stacked bond pattern.